---
title: "DML"
sidebarTitle: "DML"
description: "INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and COPY — changing the rows a table holds."
icon: pen-to-square
keywords: ["insert", "update", "delete", "copy", "dml"]
---

<Badge color="red">Enterprise</Badge> [SQL runs on a deployment.](/sql)

Statements that change rows. For the shape of the table, see [DDL](/sql/ddl).

Each of these commits a new table version, so
[versioning](/management/table#versioning) and the
[write guarantees](/basics/guarantees#writes) apply -- including that the
version advances even when a statement affects zero rows.

## INSERT {#insert}

```sql
INSERT INTO documents (id, title) VALUES (1, 'Merlin'), (2, 'Arthur')

INSERT INTO archive SELECT * FROM documents WHERE created_at < '2026-01-01'
```

`INSERT ... SELECT` is the form worth knowing: it moves rows between tables
server-side, without a round trip through your process.

## UPDATE {#update}

```sql
UPDATE documents SET title = upper(title) WHERE category = 'film'
```

Assignments take any expression the [dialect](/sql/functions) supports,
including references to other columns of the same row. Without a `WHERE` clause
every row is updated.

<Warning>
An update does not recompute [computed columns](/feature-engineering/add-computed-column)
that derive from the column you changed. A filled value keeps what it was
computed from -- see [Guarantees](/basics/guarantees#jobs).
</Warning>

## DELETE {#delete}

```sql
DELETE FROM documents WHERE created_at < '2025-01-01'
```

Deletion marks rows rather than erasing them, so the data remains recoverable
for as long as the version holding it survives
[retention](/maintenance/compaction).

## COPY {#copy}

```sql
COPY (SELECT id, title FROM documents) TO 's3://bucket/export/' STORED AS PARQUET
```

Writes a query result to object storage. This is the export path when the
consumer is another engine rather than an application -- results land as files
rather than streaming to a client.

## Merge insert {#merge-insert}

Upsert -- matching incoming rows against existing keys -- has no SQL form. It is
an SDK operation, because it needs a source relation and a per-match policy that
a single statement cannot express. See
[Merge insert](/ingestion/merge-insert).

## See also {#see-also}

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Ingestion" icon="inbox" href="/ingestion">
    The same operations from the SDKs.
  </Card>
  <Card title="DDL" icon="pen-ruler" href="/sql/ddl">
    Changing structure rather than rows.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>